


drawn from us like blood

by louscr



Series: i said i wanted to worship something [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (and just a hint of), (specifically at the end), Alternate Universe, Angst, Blood, Corruption Avatar, Entity Shuffle, Gen, Hunt!Jon, Manipulation, Slaughter!Martin, Time Skips, Violence, Web!Martin, slaughter stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21513061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louscr/pseuds/louscr
Summary: There is somethinghuntinghim. Martin knows in his bones and in that rising anger, in the eyes that peer through him and the claws that tangle in the silk he's woven around himself. He doesn't particularly mind one way or the other though.At least, he doesn't until he's sprinting through street after street, with a boy that looks just younger than him on his heels, all thin, jagged edges and sharp eyes.(And large, sharp teeth and a smile like death and limbs grown to make every stride loping and wrong.)
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims
Series: i said i wanted to worship something [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539373
Comments: 14
Kudos: 152





	drawn from us like blood

Martin's childhood is normal until it’s not, until he stops and stares and sees all the violence in the world, spread out like a tableau before him. The patterns they paint feel like warmth when he traces them. He tugs them into perfection to feel the crawl of contentment up his spine. Everything about it sinks into his bones, until he can feel every violent impulse nestled neatly in his lungs.

By the time he realizes something in him has changed, Martin has waited far too long, and the thing nestled within him has grown ravenous.

_ (It is restless, pacing, waiting for blood to spill and spill and spill.) _

Its joy is Martin's own when his hands close around something sharp, something shaped like a weapon. It craves for him to let go, for him to succumb to its razor-edged embrace. Martin is nearly afraid, but always promises it  _ soon _ , and never emptily.

For now though, Martin takes care of his mother, goes to school, comes home, keeps busy.

It makes his lungs itch, burn discordantly.

_ (It makes his hands twitch around a kitchen knife as he prepares dinner, makes him think about blood and freeing himself and the  _ anger _ in his lungs, the violence.) _

He staves it off marginally by cooking, imprecise and jagged as he cuts meat and dices vegetables, scoring through the cutting board and gripping the knife with white knuckles. The blade slipping through feels rapturous, the resistance painted bloody and  _ living _ in his mind.

It becomes ritual. Snap the ends off celery and hear the crackle of bone in its place. Watch how the meat parts as he cuts it down to strips. Let himself imagine something more insidious every time he passes a knife through whatever he's cooking. It’s  _ enough _ . For a time.

_ (In the end, every one of those moments only made the thing in his lungs  _ angrier _.) _

* * *

He finds himself in front of a bar when the  _ need _ catches up to him, coloring his mind shades of red and rust until he  _ shakes _ with it. 

There is music thumping from within the building, beating with Martin’s heart and rushing through his veins, rising and racing like blood as the voices swell in chorus. Over it, there is yelling, belligerent and vile, and it blends beautifully with the song. It makes Martin smile, joy, reverence, laced through his lungs and melting into the desire there.

Martin doesn’t know exactly where he picked up the small paring knife in his palm, but it feels right to hold it, even when the few patrons filing in and out stare at him as though they believe he has parents who never learned how to raise him.

_ (The blade is sharp, he can  _ feel _ it, and he doesn’t  _ want _ to be watched anymore, and then he isn’t. Simple.) _

_ (Martin knows how easily blades slip through silk, and his hands are good at pulling things into their place, it’s natural.) _

Before the song can even finish, two bloodied men are thrown from the building, looking like they’re ready to tear back into each other as soon as they’ve regained their footing.

It’s so, so simple.

Martin barely has to try to reach out and tug a few of those thin silken strands, wound tight around the men's hearts, and then they are upon each other, all teeth and fists and blood. Nobody moves to stop them, and nobody moves to stop Martin when he presses a knife into the losing man's palm.

The first sound the knife makes falls with the end of the song within the building, and it is purely the ripping of cotton and flesh, blood soaking all three as Martin walks back home, that incessant itch nestled underneath the frenzy of blood crooning in his ears, echoing of music and blood and unrestrained, senseless ferity. 

* * *

Martin grows used to the thing dwelling so deeply in his lungs, the blood and the bruises and the aching and screaming. It becomes normal.

_ (And when he lets go, his pain is revelry and that of others is his atonement. ) _

* * *

There is something  _ hunting _ him. Martin knows in his bones and in that rising anger, in the eyes that peer through him and the claws that tangle in the silk he's woven around himself. He doesn't particularly mind one way or the other though.

At least, he doesn't until he's sprinting through street after street, with a boy that looks just younger than him on his heels, all thin, jagged edges and sharp eyes. 

_ (And large, sharp teeth and a smile like death and limbs grown to make every stride loping and wrong.) _

He skids around a corner, blood rushing in his ears, singing so beautifully, cracks glass across brick and clutches a shard in his fist. His palm slices open like butter, stains the glass opaque red, bleeds like an exaltation.

The boy, with dark hair and big eyes and a predator's teeth, launches himself around the corner and into a roll as Martin's fist sails through the air where his throat should've been, glass shard leading.

Every swing is a step in some dance buried in the depths of his mind, the scuff of shoes against concrete and panting breaths and dripping blood complimenting every movement. It’s heady, how he can taste blood in his mouth and feel both of their anger in his bones.

Martin nearly bites through the flesh of the other boy's arm when it comes to close, can feel the blood on his teeth and see the split skin. The boy drags claws down Martin's back and through skin and cloth as though they were nothing.

His limbs are longer still now, disproportionate and accompanying the flash of yellow-green in the boy’s eyes.

Then, the song ends, screeching to a close with Martin pinned, both of them bloody and fuming in the alley. Even with the sudden silence ringing in his ears, Martin's blood is roaring, his heart thundering with adrenaline, anger, a flurry of emotion and excitement and awe echoing in his lungs as the boy's claws close around his throat.

_ (Finally, this is a fight,  _ Martin's blood whispers to him, shuddering _ , this is what you are made for, aching and bruises and blood stained teeth and too many sharp edges.) _

Martin smiles, feels the sharp pain where his lip has split, and then the boy is gone in a dead sprint, footprints stark and bloody on the concrete. It's interesting, how those red footprints make Martin feel, outlining something he can't quite define. Something like intrigue, in the same way that the thing in Martin's chest is something he loves.

It's also a very easy trail to follow, as the song in his lungs still echoes in his ears, its voice raised to match the rush of his blood.

* * *

They clash, in the beginning. Jon is still too scared and instinctive, Martin still trapped in that melody of violence and all too willing to wind fate around his fingers.

They're better at it now though, Jon dragging Martin after someone who he says smells like damp mulch and soured flesh. It's an easy trail for him to see, still bristling with instinct and his heart echoing in his ears. 

_ (Martin likes Jon for now, his presence makes the thing in his lungs shiver to life, terrible and hungry and eager.) _

He stops them just outside a quiet house on a too quiet street.

Its walls are dark with grime and rot, bulging in some places where they've distorted. The door barely fits its frame, already cracked half open where it can't click shut anymore. Jon nods toward it, eyes, as always, hauntingly wide, and moves to stand behind Martin.

_ (It is a rhythm at this point, one they both know by heart.) _

The door swings fully open silently, despite the lopsided hinges and how closely it rests to the floor. 

Inside, there is something in the shape of a woman, its skin yellowed and pocked with sores and its mouth stained red, cheeks sunken and eyes dead. It smiles at them, grotesque and deteriorating.

Jon's hand meets his back, pushing ever so slightly, and Martin's lungs rage as he lunges, clutching a serrated knife. The anger is back and he feels free, feels rapture seeping from within his bones.

The impact of blade through rotten flesh feels like joy in the pit of Martins stomach, sharp and bright and glowing. The thing that used to be a woman digs her nails into Martin's left arm and pierces skin, gouging deep lines when he jerks it out of her grip. All five wounds feel like fire, and only serve to stoke his excitement.

He loses time after that, only knows blood and pain and the screeching of the ailed being. There is nothing but his blood spilling and something that was once a life ending.

It feels like so little after its over, but his lungs are full of blood and frenzy and Martin feels  _ good _ .

_ (Even if he won't admit it, he knows the thing sheltered inside his chest isn't truly separate from him anymore, if it ever was at all.) _

They leave the corpse, wander back to Jon's home. His grandmother is asleep and Martin does nothing to hide the blood drenching him.

"I need something bigger," he tells Jon when he has changed and cleaned his face and hands.

_ (It only takes a careful tug of a silken thread for Jon to agree.) _

* * *

_ (The little sect of The People's Church of the Divine Host that Jon hunts down nearby turns in on itself beautifully when Martin slips into its ranks.) _

* * *

Jon apologizes before he explains, and Martin is afraid in a way he doesn't remember being since before he was whatever he is now, since before he had the part of himself that is  _ hungry _ .

His throat feels dry and his blood and lungs are quiet, the air he's breathing is barely a whisper. Every muscle in his body feels tight enough to snap.

_ (Jon is  _ leaving. _ ) _

He's going to Oxford and leaving Martin and Martin is  _ terrified _ , hands frozen where they've been held between Jon's since he had started speaking.

_ (The part of Martin that is still human is proud, happy and scared, but proud. That part of him is so small now.) _

Jon lets go of his hands, promises he'll  _ come back _ once he has his degree. His eyes are kind, misty with tears and promise. 

Martin is  _ terrified _ .

_ (Monsters aren't good at being scared.) _

It's instinct—something in Martin that's found his fear and broken under it—when he tries to pull Jon away from this future. It is sloppy and scared and imperfect: it is desperation. It is an imprecise fist in a handful of thread struggling to keep Jon close: to keep the only semblance of humanity he has left.

He can't hear his own blood nor heart, only silence and terror and then the frantic motion of Jon flinching away.

"Martin did you-" Jon is on his feet, backing away, looking cornered and more scared than Martin has ever seen him, hand over his chest like something is bleeding there. "What did you  _ do _ ?" 

It is barely a breath of a question, his voice shattered and eyes checking every dark corner of the room frantically, as if he's looking for some forgotten nightmare lurking there.

_ (Martin  _ knows _ how Jon feels about spiders, knows from a story told in the dark when they were both too  _ hungry _ to sleep, knows it in tears and shaking sobs and a vice-like grip around his hand.) _

"I'm sorry," he pleas because he  _ is _ and because he knows Jon may have promised to come back before, but after this Martin has no doubt that he won't.

_ (He does not reach out, he doesn't deserve the comfort of a gentle goodbye now, and he can't bear to watch Jon flinch away from him again.) _

_ (The door's hinges shriek mournfully when they close behind Jon.) _

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me about tma or the entity shuffle au on [tumblr](https://archivizt.tumblr.com/) or leave a comment!! (specifically to force me to hurry up with the next fic for this lol)  
> (this fic is also cross posted [here](https://archivizt.tumblr.com/post/189211007015/drawn-from-us-like-blood)!)


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